Starwood just came out with a new promotion where you can purchase SPG points at a 35% discount! This offer is available to everyone and you can purchase up to 30,000 points through December 29, 2017.
If you go all in it will cost you $682.50 to purchase 30,000 points. I definitely WOULD NOT suggest buying points speculatively, however, if you have an upcoming stay at a Starwood hotel, do the math to see if purchasing points is cheaper then paying for the hotel outright. To receive the discount, you must purchase a minimum for 5,000 points. You definitely might find purchasing points working on in your favor at a lot of hotels and resorts!
And remember, since SPG points now transfer to Marriott, 1 SPG point = 3 Marriott points. So if you do go all in, those 30,000 SPG points will net you 90,000 Marriott points.
Some things to know with this promotion:
- The maximum number of points you can purchase in a calendar year is 30,000 points
- You can purchase points in increments of 500
- Points take up to 24 hours to deposit into your account
- Your Starwood account must be activated for at least 14 days
- Purchase points here
Pros/Cons of Redeeming Points:
- You will still get stay/night credits even when redeeming (pro)
- You will not get the points (con)
- If there is a bonus at the time, you will be ineligible when redeeming points (con)
- If you are using all points, you will not have to pay any taxes (pro)
- If using cash + point, you sometimes need to pay tax on the cash portion, but since this is on such a smaller amount you will not have to pay the full tax on the regular rate and at some resort and city locations this can be extremely high (pro)
- At some hotels, you do not have the pay the resort fee if using points to redeem for your stay (pro)
So unless there is some unbelievable promotion going on, or the cost of purchasing points is close to the cost of actually paying for the stay, definitely use points when it is cheaper. This is a really good opportunity to purchase points for cheap!
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Can you share any examples where this is a good deal? Most of the hotels that I check it’s cheaper to simply pay cash, sometimes by a wide margin.
@Dav – Sure! I’ll put together a blog post with some examples.
There are LOTS of examples where the points would work better. Especially in Europe. for example, next May I’m going to Rome for two nights and staying at Boscolo Exedra Roma, Autograph Collection. It would be €948 ($1,100 US dollars) for the 2 nights. Or 90,000 points. So you could buy the 90,000 Marriott points (30,000 SPG points) for $682.50 instead of paying $1,100.
I typically never purchase points but if you were to purchase SPG points with a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, would this qualify for the 3 X travel category?
@Earl Lee – points are purchased from Points.com and typically do not code as “travel”
Hi..
If i purchase SPG Points, is it good using those points to redeem Airlines Award Chart for Business or First Class flight? Say Qatar Airways, Korean Air or Etihad?
Thank you